A transmission equipped vehicle has a gear shift lever that transmits an operation command to the transmission through a gear shift cable. During use of the transmission vibrations occur, e.g., in the transmission housing. These vibrations cause noise that may travel from the transmission housing to the shift cable and into the passenger compartment of the vehicle through the gear shift lever. Thereby the driver and passengers experience an unwanted noise and unpleasant vibrations through the gear shift lever. A commonly used method to avoid this problem is to add a mass damper to the shift cable. However, this increases the weight of the vehicle and other solutions are thus preferred. It is also common to use tuning structures in the transmission cable comprising an inner cable and a cable conduit and controlling the rigidity of such tuning structure.
US 2006/0053943 discloses a transmission cable comprising an outer tube and an inner cable accommodated in the outer tube. The inner cable is connected in one end to a shift arm through a rubber bush, i.e., a tuning structure, which may elastically deform to inhibit the transfer of vibrations through the cable. The rigidity of the rubber bush is set so that it is lower in a direction of pushing the inner cable than in a direction of pulling the inner cable.
US 2011/0056325 discloses a noise reduction apparatus comprising a cable connection pipe that has one side connected to a shift lever sided end of an outer cable of the shift cable and a damper housing that has one end coupled to a shift lever-sided end of a cable connection pipe by a first antivibration member therein and the other side thereof elastically coupled to the shift lever mounting bracket in a mounting socket by a second antivibration member. The two antivibration members, e.g., rubber, reduce vibration at the damper housing and the mounting socket and hence dampen the vibrations transmitting to the gear shift lever.
The problems with the solutions according to the prior art is that using a soft material in the antivibration member may cause the shift feeling to be lost and using a stiff material may cause vibrations to be transmitted. Other solutions may be bulky, difficult to manufacture and expensive. Hence, there is a need for an improved damper that may reduce vibration noise without losing the good gear shift feeling.